When to use 'i' (to) with a verb


The Question from the forum was:

Hi all,
Please put me out of my misery with this one! I'm getting muddled with when you need to precede a verb with 'i'. For example - (You may recognise these from bootcamp vocab 2)
Bydd amser i gysgu mis nesa - There will be time to sleep next month
and
Mae'n syniad da gwneud o mis nesa - It's a good idea to do it next month.

I can't work out why the first is 'i gysgu' for to sleep but the second is not ' i wneud' for to do but just gwneud.

Are there any rules or conventions to when you need to say 'i' + verb or when just the verb itself is enough?

Thanks
Richard


Aran's answer:

Broadly speaking, this is an area where Welsh has been affected a lot by English. There are plenty of words/situations in Welsh where you don't need the 'i' - but even first language speakers will often put it in because they've got used to the English pattern of always putting 'to' with the infinitive.

That's the key difference - in Welsh, the infinitive is (for example) 'cysgu' - in English, it is 'to sleep'.

What this means for learners is:

a) you're very unlikely to reach the point where you *know* all the time which way you should be doing it, and

b) you really don't need to know, because you'll get used to doing it the 'right' way with SSiW, and people will understand whichever way you say it.

I think of this as an example of language that you don't need to learn, because you'll get it by osmosis just by speaking Welsh to people...:)

[The only way you can really go wrong on this is if you decide NOT to speak Welsh to people until you're sure when to put 'i' with a verb and when not...:wink:]